The platypus that turned somersaults

This blog is about an encounter with a real-life platypus. I didn't have a camera with me that day, but I did have my notebook (pictured) and, actually, this blog isn't so much about the platypus as it is about memory. You see, I'd forgotten about my encounter with the platypus until I came across my notebook again. Then the memory came flooding back to me. It was from a day at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. I wrote a lot of notes that day about different birds and animals. And my notes included the following quickly-scrawled sentences about the platypus:

"I stop by the platypus nocturnal house. The platypus appears and—oddly, I think—proceeds to do these somersaults in the water, with a diameter of three-quarters of a metre or so, tracing circles alongside the glass. It does this for a few minutes, round and round and round like a wheel and never stopping."

Can you picture the image? Now that I've been reminded of it by my notes, I remember quite distinctly being astounded by the platypus' behaviour. The platypus went on for minute after minute, somersaulting continually in its tank, at a considerable speed. I had never imagined a platypus would act like that. I have no idea if it was "natural" behaviour, in the sense of it being the sort of action a platypus would perform in the wild. Perhaps it was an action brought on by its being kept in captivity? But, either way, it was a "natural" behaviour, at least in the sense that a platypus can physically perform such a feat.

Just outside the platypus nocturnal house was an enclosure with a wombat in it. The wombat, too, was active, and I wrote a number of lines about it in my notebook:

"Outside, the wombat is out and awake. It is munching loudly on a hunk of raw, sweet potato (the orange variety), holding it down loosely with the claws of one front paw. I catch sight of its hind paw when it starts to walk, seeing for the first time (since I learned about it last week) the fused second and third toes which are joined but still have two separate claws..."

Again, these notes brought back memories which I'd otherwise forgotten. They jogged images back into my consciousness, for now I do remember the unexpected loud CRUNCH of the wombat consuming the raw sweet potato whilst holding it down (somewhat like a bear) with its front paw.

Both these images—of the platypus and the wombat—are usable images if I ever want to write about such creatures. I can use these behaviours as real-life observed facts in either fiction or non-fiction. Of course, that's why I wrote down these observations in the first place. But it's a point worth making. Writing observations down greatly increases their usability. Otherwise, thousands of little observed details are simply forgotten, and days spent in "field work" are almost completely wasted. Written notes not only provide data; they also jog actual memories in my brain back to life, so that I remember the thrill of discovery that I had on location on a particular day.

For writers, all of this is as valuable as gold.

Writing as a subversive activity

As mentioned a few blogs ago, I recently finished writing a shortish and rather crazy kids' novel. With a working title of The Elephant Heist, it details an outrageous plot to rob a town bank. (The two bandits hitch a parachute to an elephant, and plunge from 30,000 feet in the dead of night to crash through the bank's roof—with chaotic results for the town and a particular group of kids.) But what may not be immediately apparent, unless you think about it a bit, is how subversive this activity of writing a novel is in the 21st Century. We now live, of course, in the age of television. Children are being drawn to watch more and more on screen, whether it is television itself, or television's major allies (i.e. movies, Youtube clips, and video games). Writers may therefore feel the need to justify their writing of a new novel, which is precisely what I'm doing in this blog.

Now, firstly, I should point out what I am not saying. I am not saying that kids should be forced to turn screens off and read books instead, as much as I might like that to be the case. Parents and teachers, by contrast, may quite legitimately turn screens off, for they have responsibility for the children under their care. But writers are in a different category. They do not possess—nor should they—such powers of coercion.

What I am saying is actually something more subversive. As a writer, I am not trying to force kids to do anything. But I am quite deliberately seeking to subvert the dominant medium of our age: television. I am seeking to use words—words that will be read, not produced graphically—to tell a story that kids will love: and I am presenting it in a medium that is ultimately much more wonderful (I believe) than mere television.

Television, remember, presents every image ready-made. Each frame is prepackaged. There is no room—not the slightest room—for a child's own imagination. A certain TV program may appear "imaginative", even highly so, but it is the imagination of the program's creator and producer, not of the child who is watching it. The child therefore consumes a highly produced package, a package which cares nothing for the imaginative contribution of the child, and is, in fact, opposed to it. A TV program only "works" if it is consumed as a ready-made piece.

But "reading a book" is, and has always been, different. Words are printed on the page. The author and child meet half way. All the images, and sound effects, and voices, and characters, and scenery, and story highs-and-lows appear in the child's own mind. The child is constantly engaging with the words and producing their own graphic version in their brain. The story becomes "theirs" in a way that a television program never can.

Television, I expect, will only increase its dominance in the coming decades. It has too many powerful tools at its command to be easily resisted. But one place of resistance that continues to retain considerable power is the reading of books. When a child truly discovers the joy of reading, they develop a certain immunity to the flashy yet empty promises of television. They develop powers of creativity, imagination and thoughtful engagement, equipping themselves to be more human, and thereby more real in their futures.

That's why my writing of a new novel is subversive. It opposes (happily) the age of television in which we live. And hopefully (joining a host of books by other authors already out there) it will wrest many hours away from screens!